Makoto_the_Phoenix

General remarks: 1) It does seem better than BXPW is, in that they just offer an instant bonus to players. Although I'm not sure what kind of signal I'm getting with double loot - feels like some sense of urgency. 2) Since the bonuses won't benefit bots, why not give the Dungeoneering bonus to F2P? It isn't like they get fast exp anyway...

Kaida23 summed up my point tersely, so I thank him for that. Let's make sure we have this clear though: I'm neither defending nor condoning the actions of this one person. However, reacting like that entire community is at fault is flawed logic, at best. In this example, at least, we have circumstantial evidence that this entire community was doing the very thing Jagex is going to court for. How they can just turn around and then welcome them into the fold (despite it having potentially good side-effects) is mind-boggling. In any event, I'll keep this on topic now...

6. Realise that praising their efforts might change the rest of the botting communities. Mentioning it every chance? I saw a thread created by another player on the forum that was stickied where Jmods were poking fun at the site -- where else? Why so [bleep]y? Simply because their internal consistencies with fansites is, as demonstrated here, horribly flawed. They're willing to shitcan an entire fansite for the actions of one person, yet espouse another, of which the majority of participants were dedicated to - in their own words - disregard[ing] the terms, conditions, and agreements entered [to play the game]. There's something to be said about reformation, which I'm more than happy to agree with - maybe the reformation of one will lead to the reformation of another. However, it lies counter to what they've been about with their whole anti-bot agenda. So please, forgive me if I seem a bit chippy at this; I just can't stand inconsistency.

So in essence, the lawsuits are really nothing more than a DMCA shakedown effort. Kind of sad, really; I had hoped that they wouldn't decide to stoop that low. I'm a bit confused about the RSBuddy part: 1. Make botting site dedicated to everything Jagex stands against 2. Have massive botting community where owners profit heavily from Jagex's game 3. Announce lawsuits against other botting sites/companies 4. Leave RSBuddy exempt from the lawsuits since it's converting to a fansite 5. Act like RSBuddy is the greatest damned thing since sliced bread by mentioning it every chance they get What the hell is that, man. Seriously. What the hell.

I'm going to stand by my guns on this one based on principle - if you give a "new" account copious amounts of wealth to start, then that would imbalance the game for [other] new players coming in, regardless if the main account had the cash or a friend. It may not mesh (and it seems we're on the same page with this one), but it's still a simple truth - making "newbies" wealthier than the average newbie causes balance issues. There's another way to fix it without going to Draconian measures (or thus risk losing what's left of the community): make the game depend less on wealth in the middle- to end-game. Thats where some kind of analysis would have to take place. How long can RS last in its current state? Could Jagex afford to have 2 "types" of RS running, this one and a newer one with faster leveling, etc? Except this is exactly what happened whey they went from RSC to RS2. Ninja'd, but this was my main point. RSC to RS2 was such a huge culture shock you had people spam-closing the doors in banks. And we all know how lovingly RSC was treated during its death sentence "bi-annual RSC open invite" period.

While I see (and agree with) your point, I must disagree when you say "integrated accounts". Since the foundation of the game is built strictly on wealth, giving a "new" account copious amounts of wealth would unbalance the game such that only incumbents would be suited to play best. There's also a point that the playerbase is "institutionalized" and wouldn't accept change easily. If RuneScape were to fundamentally change, the community wouldn't be able to take it.

SINCE WHEN. Yeah, I'm confused about this too... Well, the lore for the quest seems interesting enough. Don't know about the audio (as I haven't had a chance to download that MP3 they offered), but hopefully it's good.

Well that's too bad. Although this doesn't really surprise me, since it's something that was well-known.

Nice strawman. At no point did I say the play testing at RuneFest is 1:1 what happens with a Beta. At no point did I say the small amount of public testing found all the problems. At no point did I say it would always work. So, yes, those arguments are weak, but I was not the one that proferred them, you did. Comments about impact on the economy have been discussed already, in that any thing all a beta would do is shift the impact date. Now, have there been cases with major online games where an open beta had a negative impact? That would be the best evidence toward keeping beta closed. The case of Dominion Tower is also positive evidence to the benefit of an early beta because, as you pointed out, all problems discovered could not be immediately fixed given the small lead time. Bladekill has a point, though. You haven't provided a convincing argument outside of the implied, "It happened at Runefest, why not other updates?" I'm still of the influence that beta testing would vary by update. Is there any reason to doubt that an update which introduces a revolutionary change in experience or money making would have different, mixed results? I'm convinced that it may not, but you haven't provided enough evidence of it yet.

I'm still of the influence that it really depends on what kind of content they need to test. I'm not against beta tests, though.

I'll have to agree with you on that. I don't see what the big deal is; If anything, he won. He got his powers back AND what he set out to accomplish came to fruition. (Not only did Jagex not win the award, but they took action on the main reason why they lost) Fine, I'll bite. His message was clear - he was unhappy with Jagex's lack of action against bots, and stated that they didn't deserve to win the GGA this year. What I'm taking issue with is that he decided to 'quit' RuneScape under undefined return terms. Now had he left quietly, there wouldn't be a problem. Instead, he chose to make a video, post a thread, and have a party. And now he's back. I can't see that as anything besides waffling. Even if he only left for the bots, there was no reason to overdramatize him leaving the game.

I thought he quit. Either way, not a single care was given this day. Although I find it interesting that they're taking this direction with community videos. Not sure if it should be on the main page though...

Your GPU will work a bit harder. Fried? Not unless you haven't cleaned it out in ages. Double check within the Catalyst settings that you can turn on/enable AA before you attempt to do so. There may be Windows-specific monitoring tools for GPU usage, but I don't know any off the top of my head.

The phrase "attention [bleep]" is thrown around a lot these days...even if he did make genuinely good points, I feel like he rolled right over and caved in.

Looks like the robots will be back shortly (3 days). We all knew this was coming, but this soon? Why the heck would you have a countdown for a coding project? I doubt the countdown means anything, really. It doesn't make sense to me. Anyway, I think the (Jagex) update this week will push back the bots even more. Besides, the last countdown a bot site put up, was to inform its users that they were suing Jagex. Some coding projects can be estimated. This one? Not bloody likely.

I didn't believe that Jagex was ready to go with the anti-bot update by the time they announced that they would "never stop to combat it". It's pretty easy to jeer Jagex's efforts at that point in time, but now, all you really can do is stand in awe of what they did for the time being.

I'm a bit surprised that they're reluctant to change the gameplay for F2P. Yes, updates cost money, but investing money into a better beginning base is always a good move...

It's been about a week since this CF was deployed, and while there's still plenty more time left to reflect and analyze what's happened to the game, some preliminaries can be teased out. - Of the "active" community, 60% of the players were actively botting. Of that, 90% came from F2P. That is a lot of players, even from the sliver that P2P owns up to. - From some of the content reactions at Runefest, it seems that the content creators have conflicting goals. They do want to make the game less grindy, but can't seem to find the first step on how to do so. There's also just the interesting confusion/reaction about content updates that are designed to serve one purpose but ultimately fail (e.g. absorption update). So, we need more time to see what effect this has had on what's left of the game. The population did go above 100,000 for the weekend, which is promising, but not much higher than 135K. I refer to the air quotations I made. Retiring from a video game that's low-impact isn't what I'd call "normal". Something like retiring from professional SC2, if only to save one's wrists, is beyond justifyable. Not just that, but I do like to stay current on the company, so I can learn from its successes/failures so I may prepare for my own future development firm. As a Computer Science major, we get very little experience with real-world situations, and I like to observe whenever and whereever possible. As for the payment, if you want to re-read the post or reply to these points, then I will assume that you have waived your fee, and will not need to contact me for any form of price consulting. If this is not the case, PM me and we can arrange terms in which I don't pay you anything to hear your opinion, and you don't pay me to hear mine. :) This is because players do the same thing to death until they're bored of the skill or minigame. It's nothing to do with a grindy game, its how that player plays their own game. So in the end it's up to the player to vary their gameplay. Unless the player takes their own responsibility in doing this it won't matter what changes Jagex make - The same players will still complain because they'll either flog whatever Jagex put out next to death or complain it doesn't give them enough xp. Reducing the reliance on GP is also up to the player. Anyone can level something like herblore by simply buying the skill. Where's the fun in that? I steal my own herb seeds, grow them and level that way. I change skills accordingly and for me it has never got boring. The best thing is it doesn't cost me a bean, it varies my gameplay and it's fun. My point being everyone has the choice to either earn those things themselves or go out and buy them. If players can't take responsibility for their own gameplay, what do they expect? I see your point, but I respectfully disagree. First, many of us take pride in making fun of a normally boring situation or activity. However, if the game itself is captivating enough, there's no need to be distracted from the grind. I am of the opinion that the game should be built on top of more engaging ways of playing the game instead of rewarding repetition. As for reliance on GP, there's ways to reduce that within the game as well as the culture. [Although, fat chance with the culture.] Simply allowing only a certain tier of goods to be purchased, then having the player earn their way up to better tiers of equipment would be the way I would solve that. Having boss NPCs drop exclusive enhancements that could be added to existing, easily obtainable equipment (thus rendering it untradable), would also help. Bind-on-Pick-Up isn't something I'm a fan of, but this is another way to reduce reliance on GP - instead of being able to simply buy the best gear, you'd have to earn it. This is why I said he missed my point. I wasn't referring to myself - I had stated long ago that I already left the game. I was, and always have been, examining this from the angle of Jagex's target demographic. Saying, "if you don't like it, then quit" may work for a disgruntled veteran player, but some newbie that sees this won't put up with that. This topic has always been, in my eyes, what Jagex needs to do to recapture the imagination and enthusiasm that only their target demorgraphic can bring. Without new players, there is no RuneScape. I agree to an extent. There is a difference between grinding skills and grinding minigames for skills. However, this difference is subtle, and becomes less pronounced when players begin using minigames as their sole form of leveling up (Soul Wars, Pest Control). Some boss matches or boss-like NPCs are indeed in their own league, and wouldn't be considered a grind. Although my list is pretty small - TDs and Nex. Right, there are people that like the grind. What about the target demographic? Do you expect them to sit down and grind out these skills if they're not having fun while doing it? Now, I realize that "fun" is a subjective phrase, and should always be treated with a grain of salt. However, fun is a very real thing, and should always be factored in when we're talking about playing a game. If a player doesn't have fun grinding out, but enjoys the end-game content, they'll do whatever they can do to skip the boring stuff, and get straight to the fun part. It's the same reason people often used Gameshark and cheat codes; the boring stuff was in the way of actually having fun, so they found an out. Is this ideal? Well, no. I don't think that anyone that wants a short cut to a game should get one. Is this the current trend? Yes. Especially in MMOs, where they're grind intensive. Well there's ^this^ for sure. There's a lot of "meta-gaming" solutions out there wherein you can max-skill quickly, with a lot less grind, but your bank account suffers in the short term for it. The real reward is, as you know, that once you get the "skilling" out of the way, you've a lot more time for "end game" scenarios which are far more profitable. ... but I wonder too -- if the problem is not as much an issue of the community involved, as opposed to the actual game play. Do we, as players, put way too much emphasis on the "e-peen" (i.e. coins, items and skill levels), and not enough emphasis on the community itself? I wonder. Last night, one of my clan mates attained her first ever 99 skill (woodcutting), and it was a momentous occasion for her. Most of the clan gathered at the site and we watched her get her 99 skill and her cape. She was so emotionally moved by the moment that she actually had to go AFK to get some tissues and dry her tears. It simply meant that much to her to not only achieve the 99 skill, but to also have her friends around her lending her their support and approval. Now, the non-sentimental among you will poke fun at this -- sure, go ahead. But those among you who understand what it means to have both the community around you, and appreciate the work and dedication involved in achieving the skill level, may actually appreciate what she felt last night, upon achieving that ever-elusive first 99 skill. This is a great reply. I feel mostly the same way - players enjoy talking about efficiency and rushing through levels just to get to the fun part. We often skip over the more interesting aspect of the game - sociability. For instance, back in 2009 I took a very long path to 92 Smithing - 70,000 iron ores. Efficient? For the budget I had, you bet it was. Boring? I could have watched paint dry twice and felt more accomplished. What kept it interesting was the sociability aspect of it. That was around the time I happened into Mod MMG's clan chat, and made a lot of friends there. No one really bashed my inefficient leveling scheme, nor did they want to. That was really just about a player going at their own pace, enjoying the game. Nowadays it isn't like that, and that's becoming painfully evident. The community isn't focused on having fun because the game isn't as fun as it once was. I feel that the two of them are interconnected; feel free to disagree with me on this.

Sounds like the bot makers have found a way around the clusterfutter. Now we'll just have to wait and see what else Jagex has up their sleeves.... At this point, I'm skeptical. It sounds like nothing more than propaganda. Besides, with Jagex cracking down on bot accounts now like never before, there aren't many willing to test the waters with botting anymore. Then again, I'm also curious. If they did find a way around CF, then hopefully Jagex has a backup plan.

I think some wires are getting crossed here. From what i see people are agreeing on two things: 1. We would not mind an alternative grind thats more interactive (such as the smithing update). 2. We do not want to eliminate the grind. We still want it to take hours and hours to reach desirable levels (aka we dont want it to be WoW where you can reach max level in a few weeks). I'll take this a step further. The so-called grind needs to be entertaining and captivating enough for the general target demographic of RuneScape continue. Things like diversions and minigames were the initial attempt at replacing grind, but you soon realize that you'll just be grinding those minigames out too. The most prominent examples: Soul Wars and Stealing Creation. If the game could be rebuilt on a foundation that made skilling more interactive, rather than a battle of cost efficiency, then this could help tons. Another thing that would help is to severely reduce the reliance on GP in the middle- to end-game. This means that the player would have to earn more things themselves, but this would allow room for the player to acquire levels for skilling. The logic has to be worked out there, of course - something which takes me out of the scope of this topic. I think you've hit the nail on the head. RS is definitely not for those looking for an instant gratification/god cheat code/warp to the final boss kind of game. Only problem is that their target demographic is looking for just that. This is why you notice some stronger permanence of Members' advertising into the free game now, since level skills in Members is way faster than F2P. There's no point in an instant 99, but at the very least, make the 99 feel more like fun instead of more like work... So I can derive from this post that you've all but missed my point, right? Let me help you along a bit - I "retired" back in June. With this in mind, go back and re-read the main post. Think about the points I've raised. When you're ready to respond, I'm ready to listen. :)

Thanks for the replies, folks. First, to everyone that "likes" the grind - okay, you like it. There are plenty of people that don't, though. ;) I disagree about the "mindless" part. If a game is mindless then its "interesting" value is still pretty low. However, certainly the game can be made more interesting while minimizing/reducing/penalizing repetitive tasks. This begs the question, does every MMO have to be bogged down by hours upon hours of tedium? I think that Jagex could do better. Or by fixing PvP (Better safe PvP with some type of reward) Death in combat (graves are idiotic.) Because bosses are so much more complex, or at least require more then one combat style, by nature one needs to risk more to be competitive. Dying @ DKS used to cost me3-5m. Now it'd cost me 40m and 8m worth of DG xp. Items kept on death is majorly broken, especially when lag is a major factor, as well as just the plain unresponsive nature of the game. Also, no easier way to do complex tasks, like switch gear sets. Mousekeys plz? Game is broke. That would require an interface overhaul, not necessarily a game overhaul. But good points nonetheless. I'll get my optimism of them looking into the grind soon out in the open - they've been looking into solving the bot problem since before Easter Eggs. I'll wait for them to look at the grind, but I'm not holding my breath. As for bot makers defeating the ClusterFlutterer: It's only a matter of time. As long as CF isn't the infamous Halting Problem, it will be solved.

I'll be the first to admit it - I was highly skeptical of Jagex being able to successfully pull off a technical solution to stopping macro scripts. I'll also admit that, even though they can enjoy short term success, it will only be a matter of time before this hurdle is overcome. However, it seems that we as a community have not realized what has happened to the game in the wake of the bot invasion. I won't disagree that bots were a significant issue, but ultimately, they were not the true problem. First, let's review what the game's nature is. RuneScape has a vast amount of middle-game material, and very enticing end-game content. The only problem? You have to invest a substantial amount of time into the game itself to get to the endgame. Most people wouldn't see this as a problem, myself included, if it weren't for the repetitive, dull nature that the game gives us. Let's be honest - various facets of RuneScape's game are simply not entertaining, no matter how we try to bend our minds to make it so. As a former player, I couldn't really find myself enjoying Agility or Runecrafting, and before Make-X, I couldn't see myself breaking the level 80 threshold on Fletching, if only to save my wrists from intense CTS. However, after some years of enjoying the game's middle content - some six or so years since the release of RS2 - I was able to consider myself close to the endgame, which is considerably more enjoyable. What it takes to get there, of course, is mind-numbing, wrist-tingling, brain-rotting, watch-paint-dry-and-you'll-get-more-entertainment-value-out-of-that-instead grinding. Many people simply hate the grind, and for the most part, the game hasn't been changed to break up the monotonous grind since its inception. Therefore, where an opportunity to take a shortcut with automated means exists, bots will flourish. Next, let's review what bots actually did to the game. It's not hard to see that, for most everyone, they cheapened the level of gameplay and satisfaction we got out of the entire ordeal. In essence, it's not enjoyable to invest time [and money] into a game, only to have someone else breeze past you and your efforts in a fraction of the time it took you. Of course, there are legitimate players that did the same thing, however, they too have suffered from ennui or feel that the time to move on from the game is coming. Bots also made skilling a considerably moot point in the game. If you could mine vast quantities of coal, Mith, and Adamantite, you were doing pretty good for yourself. Bots and RWT companies could outmine any quantity of legitimate players in no time at all, and thus, those goods acquired with technical means flooded the economy, and caused a major resource drop. Many will argue that this was beneficial for the game, since it meant that more players could level faster, or "buy" their levels to get to the endgame. I would be quick to disagree; bots drove prices down globally, meaning that legitimate players gathering the same goods were much, much worse off. Bots and botters created friction between the loyal, legitimate player base and Jagex. This prompted Jagex to take drastic measures to "remove" them as best as they could at the time, but with each attempt being marked down with notable failure and even more friction, this caused both the player base and Jagex to become increasingly frantic about the situation. It also didn't help Jagex's public image and perception, either. Third, we can see that from the success of Jagex's new deployment- Clusterfu ClusterFlutterer, bots and botting players were a very substantial portion of the active gaming community. It will take much longer to successfully ascertain any real information from this update, but the game itself hasn't peaked over 110,000 since the update. This can be seen as a form of both success and defeat, coming from the world's most popular F2P game - there aren't a lot of people actually playing the free game, in comparison to the subscription-based game. This leads me into what the true problem with RuneScape is, and has always been: It's just not entertaining enough to the average gamer. There are a lot of people that will willingly debate this with me (and I welcome it!), but the amount of people logging in after this update is a pretty telling sign. Their target demographic has all but moved on to greener pastures. No longer is Jagex capable of boasting about the number of players online at any one given time, unlike in the past, due to the general lack of interest in the game. Now, there have been some unpopular moves that Jagex has made in regards to RuneScape over the years, many of which have caused what's left of their loyal fanbase to question where they stand or why they're still supporting the company. While it may be a little early to tell, it could very well be the case that the demographic that overwhelmingly supported Jagex's more controversial notions simply doesn't care about the game or where it ends up. It could be that the wool is finally being removed from the community's eyes about the state of the actual game. My open question is now, even though it may be a bit too early to call it, where do you think Jagex can go from here? How can they adjust and learn from this? Do they have enough momentum left in the market to captivate an audience, even with the (alleged) release of Stellar Dawn and the new Transformers MMO? My stance was outlined in a post I made way back in March on these very forums, which dealt with a solution to end bots - the only way that Jagex could adapt from here on out is to rethink the way the game is played, to make it more interesting. However, such a move like that at a time like this would finish off what's left of the community.

Yup. I know the music industry does this quite frequently - I've had to advise a number of my residents about similar situations. But it takes one arrogant kid to go "I ain't payin" for this to become a nightmare for the company in question. At least with movies and music there is an actual copyright involved. The only thing I could possibly see Jagex having a leg to stand on is the line But it'll be rather difficult to prove that in court. Furthermore, it'll be awfully, awfully hard to prove that Bot Doe #9823145 is the ONE responsible. Given the U.S. Court's reliance on precedence and how they've already failed twice... The thing that bugs me is not that they're willing to give second chance to botters, but rather the fact that by doing such a thing, Jagex has exposed their weakness. The botters may be right about this: their game IS propped up by people who bot, whether or not Jagex likes to admit it. Removing bots may be an excellent re-start, but Jagex has to now compete with all the other F2P and mobile games out there. At this point I'm not sure who's digging who's grave. I can see exactly why they're giving botters a second chance. The writing's on the wall now; the game's (legitimate) player base has definitely shrunk as to be incomparable to the botting community, and the game's popularity has officially waned. If they don't offer those people a way to come back, then they're pretty much sunk. I've got to sit down and think about this more, but honestly - Jagex doesn't come out a winner in all of this.

It's a similar tactic used in copyright trolling - sue the masses, and then offer them a chance to settle for far less what it would cost to go through with any lawsuit. I'm not exactly sure what part of the DMCA they're violating either - it could loosely be tied to protecting their IP, but they failed to secure that properly enough anyway...so...I'm still lost.

True. Disabling the garbage collection is a gutsy move, especially when java isn't very well known for manual memory management. Garbage collection isn't disabled, per se - it's just so clamped down now that it can't help but be considered disabled. If the memory locations are explicitly released then there won't be much of an issue, but that essentially turns Java's memory management scheme into C++. On to the actual Object[][]: It's just given bot makers a really interesting problem to solve. Given enough time, it will be overcome. I'm not sure what this would accomplish for the long run yet.